This site in East Cambridge, Mass., has "redevelopment" written all over it. Twelve years ago the pet store on the second floor was torched, allegedly by the owner and two young accomplices. I haven't been able to find out if any of the three was ever convicted. This site is just a stone's throw from Superior Nut, which I wrote about a few months ago (see May 5, 2018, "Can Superior Nut Stand the Heat?").
This whole area has been undergoing change of late, and there is more to come, as I mentioned in the Superior Nut post. The neighborhood will one day be serviced by a long-planned, but much-delayed, extension of the Green Line trolley system. The service will run right behind these lots, with a spur connecting to nearby Union Square, and the main line continuing to the Mystic Valley Parkway in Medford.
A Holiday Inn Express hotel opened up along this route several years ago, and this fall, a new development called Point 262 Condominiums is slated to open next to the hotel, directly across from the former pet store site. Several apartment and condo complexes have recently risen in what is known as Cambridge Crossing. Union Square, just over the line in Somerville, is ripe for redevelopment as well. I plan to explore that neighborhood in the near future
Between the old pet store and the Sav-Mor Spirits liquor store sits an old car wash.
I think these snacks are free.
So, will the Green Line extension bring money and redevelopment to this rundown spot along Monsignor O'Brien Highway? Stay tuned....
Kind of a cool stone building, isn't it? Definitely stands out amid the old Colonial homes and wood-framed shops of Cape Cod. I'm not sure I would've stopped to take a picture of this place, however, if it wasn't lying under a pin on Google Maps saying, "Kurt Vonnegut Saab Dealership."
I use Google Maps a lot to find new places to explore, and to get directions. In advance of my annual Cape vacation this past July, I consulted the online atlas. Scanning a bit further east than I've roamed on previous Cape outings, I saw that this former dealership was located on Route 6A, about half an hour from the house we rent.
According to lore (and a few sources I found on the Internet), Kurt Vonnegut -- author of Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, Bluebeard and other books -- owned a Saab dealership in this building from 1957-1961, before his writing career really took off. I read Slaughterhouse-Five in high school, along with a few of Vonnegut's short stories, including my favorite, "Harrison Bergeron." That's why I sought this building out.
After checking this place out, I poked a bit more around West Barnstable.
At first I thought this sign for Ed Nemec's TV-Radio Service was something that a collector had put up on an old cottage on their property. But after, what else, a Google search, I learned that Mr. Nemec ran this shop out of his home for more than 50 years, before he passed away about a month before my visit. His shop was enough of an institution that it has been memorialized on canvas.
I also stumbled across the former Prince Jenkins Antiques.
If it were open, I'd have gone in. I haven't been able to find out anything about this place, other than some provenance references at auction web sites.
A few steps away from the old antique shop is the West Barnstable Cemetery.
This is the Bursley family crypt. Just a short drive away is Bursley Manor, a bed and breakfast run out of a circa-1670 house that was once the center of a dairy farm.
This impressive stone was set for John "Mad Jack" Percival, a naval officer who served his country during the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War and "the campaign against West Indies pirates," according to Wikipedia. Perhaps the most amazing story from Mad Jack's life is his piloting the USS Constitution around the globe in 1844-45.
I finished my quick tour of West Barnstable at, where else, a train station.
West Barnstable Station, headquarters of the Cape Cod Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society, was built in 1911 and contains "working railroad tools and equipment, lanterns, switch stands, a baggage cart and a small motor car," per the group's web site. Below is either the motor cart or the baggage cart.
Below is a caboose from the Delaware & Hudson railroad, which called itself "the Bridge Line to New England and Canada."
Last, and certainly not least, a sign that's difficult to read, for which I apologize.
The white sign underneath the humorous yellow one is even funnier. "This ain't a bathroom. Don't pee here," it says. I guess public urination here is, um, a sticky issue. Under the warning are graphics of a guy peeing, a woman calling the police, and a guy peeing again, this time with a picture of handcuffs under him.
From 1818-1888 on this site along what is now Monsignor O'Brien Highway in East Cambridge, Mass., the New England Glass Company operated a mill. By 1849 the company was the largest in the glass industry, with 500 employees, according to this post at The Antiquarian. The company closed in 1888 after some lean years and a strike, and moved to Toledo, Ohio. The property was sold a year later; in 1921 the factory's smokestack was torn down. In 1925 the current building on the site was constructed as offices for the Boston & Maine Railroad, according to the web site for the Glass Factory Condominiums, which were developed in 1998 (and updated in 2003). I'm happy somebody thought to memorialize this piece of history.
I suppose it's impossible to find all of the worthwhile hidden history in Boston, but I'm trying.
("SITE OF THE FIRST MEETING HOUSE IN BOSTON BUILT A.D. 1632 / PREACHERS JOHN WILSON JOHN ELIOT JOHN COTTON / USED BEFORE 1640 FOR TOWN MEETINGS AND FOR SESSIONS OF THE GENERAL COURT FOR THE COLONY" -- Seen along Devonshire Street, across from the Old State house.)
("THE SITE OF THE BUNCH OF GRAPES TAVERN / HERE ON 30TH JULY 1733 WAS INSTITUTED FROM CHARTER FROM THE GRAND LODGE OF ENGLAND THE FIRST REGULARLY CONSTITUTED LODGE OF FREE AND ACCEPTED MASONS IN AMERICA / NOW ST. JOHNS LODGE OF BOSTON / HERE IN 1786 WAS ORGANIZED THE OHIO COMPANY PIONEER IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GREAT WEST UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF GENERAL RUFUS PUTNAM / FIRST TOWNSHIP LAID OUT AT MARIETTA OHIO / THIS TABLET PLACED BY THE CITY OF BOSTON 30TH OF JULY 1935" -- Seen along State Street.)
I really, really want this to be an old motel. Over the years of riding the train, walking and driving by Whittier Place Boston, I imagined that this building -- a fitness center at the condo development that is actually owned by nearby Massachusetts General Hospital -- once hosted secret trysts, hard-drinking door-to-door salesmen, con men on the lam and just regular old people visiting Boston. But this doesn't seem to be true.
I did all sorts of Google searches and reviewed old photos online of this area, which was Boston's West End until the late 1950s, when urban renewal wiped this old-school neighborhood (it once looked like the nearby North End) off the map. Nothing in that research told me that there was ever a motel here. I guess that when Whittier Place was constructed, the developers put up a pool and accompanying building with dozens of cabanas specifically designed to fool little old me.
Perhaps the architect designed it to look like a motel because in 1970, when the complex was erected, motels were still at least somewhat in vogue, and perhaps he or she thought this design would offer low-to-the-ground familiarity to offset the tall residential buildings going up all around it. I'm just grasping at straws. Straws that rich people use to stir their fancy smoothies from Jugos that are offered at the club.
Venturing out to do something different during my annual vacation to Pocasset on Cape Cod this past summer, I checked out the Sandwich Flea Market (aka the Sandwich Bazaar). I may just have stumbled on a new favorite type of place to shoot photos. And while I didn't buy anything, I can see myself hanging out more at these types of events.
I loved the incredibly wide variety of stuff people had laid out on tables and blankets, from old baseballs to military knives, beer steins to LPs, books about Hitler to costume jewelry. And I loved the community, as many of those selling their wares obviously know each other well, in addition to many of the folks perusing the offerings. I felt the need to buy something, but I didn't. I spent so much time last year getting rid of junk in my basement in advance of a home renovation project, I just couldn't see adding more stuff to that space. In fact, I'm still culling through old toys, books, games and other household clutter. Maybe next year when I'm back on the Cape I'll actually buy some stuff at the flea market, most likely albums, coins or a guitar.
OK, let's get to what I found interesting.
My father had a shoe shine kit like this. I always found it quite exotic, for some reason, with its mix of brown and black polishes, buffing cloths and brushes. On the rare occasion when I had to wear shoes, I felt privileged to be able to open up the case and take care of my shoes, just like my father did. You can pick one up like this online for $25-30.
Man, this one brings me back to my childhood, too. There was a time in the mid-'70s that my dad played tennis just about every Saturday with my Uncle George. So we had rackets in our basement, and they looked like this, with covers that you secured with wing nuts. My buddy Andy and I tried to play tennis with old rackets in high school, but we found it too hard. Instead, we invented the game of tennis jai-alai with a few other buddies. We were the best in the world! You can pick up a racket like this for $20 or so online.
I'm a numismatist, although I don't honestly know the correct way to pronounce that word. I collect coins and, to a lesser extent, paper money. Well, collect is a bit strong. I collected when I was a kid, gaining most of my loot from my dad's store of European coins he gathered when he was in the service, and from my grandmother, who used to send me old pennies. Still, once a coin dork, always a coin dork. When my father passed away in 2014, one of the things I asked my mother about keeping was something I'd never seen before: his official, uncirculated $2 bill issued on the first day of availability, April 13, 1976.
Oh boy, this is a sweet spot. I love music and these vintage record players melt my heart and bring back fond memories. My brother, sister and I listened to a LOT of 45's and albums on a pop-up record player like these when we were young. I seriously thought about buying one of these, but I already have a more modern turntable. These are candy, art, music and nostalgia all mixed together.
Not only was I a coin dork as a kid, but I was also a clarinet dork. At Henry James Junior High School I was in both the coin club and the band/orchestra. It will not surprise you that girls did not flock to a clarinet-playing numismatist who wore braces and glasses. Anyway....I played clarinet from 5th through 8th grades, but had no desire to be in my high school marching band, so I quit after junior high. I took up guitar, which I've stuck with to this day. When my daughter announced in 4th grade that she wanted to play clarinet in school, I was thrilled. I still had the one I used as a kid, so I thought it would be really cool if she used it. Turns out that after decades of sitting in its original case in my basement, my clarinet had "pad bugs," which you can look up on Google if you want. Would've cost waaaaay too much money to have the old instrument cleaned, so I tossed it out and we rented her a clarinet. She didn't particularly enjoy playing, and gave up after one year.
I'm not sure if this container was for water, coffee or something else. I just like the look of it, and the fact that it's from "DOTTY'S CATERERS" in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
Another flashback to childhood. I didn't collect beer cans, although I had friends who did. No, I was into beer bottle caps. I still have a handful. The cans in this box all appear to be in pretty good shape. One of my favorite local restaurants, Brewers Coalition, has a pretty great can collection.
I'm a big fan of the Man in Black. But I didn't buy this album.
Ceremonial sword and belt from the Masons or a similar group. And a beer stein that reminds me a little of one that my parents used to have, which I think my father brought back from Europe in the 1950's. I've looked high and low for their stein in recent years, but I fear it was sold or given away more than a decade ago, before they moved from the house where I group up.
While I think flea markets are cool places to find some rare items, I wonder who would want any of the stuff in this photo.
Dave Maynard was a beloved radio and TV personality in Boston for nearly five decades, beginning in 1952. He started as a rock 'n' roll DJ and during his career worked as a talk radio host and a newsman. He was also the host of "Community Auditions," a talent showcase on WBZ-TV for two decades. Evidently he had a statue of a giant rabbit in his front yard, hence this sign.
Perhaps the rabbit was an homage to Harvey:
Aren't those Gaiety Theatre playbills awesome? The Broadway playhouse opened in 1909 and was torn down in 1982, per Wikipedia. "The office building that housed the theatre, the Gaiety Building, has been called the Black Tin Pan Alley for the number of African-American songwriters, who rented office space there," according to Wikipedia.
I took a lot of pictures at the flea market, but didn't buy anything. The only seller who asked what I was taking pictures of, was probably the youngest vendor. He actually wanted to find something cool for me to shoot. I wasn't interested in the commemorative spoons and costume jewelry, but when he opened the 1926 N.Y. Whist Club Scoring Rules book, I got excited. "Not sure what it is - alligator, maybe?" he said.
Nerds beware!
At first I thought this was a chastity belt. Well, not really, but I couldn't imagine what the heck else it could be. One of my Instagram followers made an educated guess that this is a ceremonial belt from the Masons or a similar group.
I took this photo because of the wooden metronome in the rear middle of the table. This is very similar to one my mother has on her piano. I believe it was her father's and he passed it along to her. My grandfather taught my mother well, and he was no slouch himself. He played in a group with Henny Youngman in Brooklyn back in the 1920's, according to family lore.
Here's how the metronome works:
I was very tempted. Very.
A physician's ledger and some U.S. military pins.
Well, that's it. I hope to visit other flea markets in the near future and shoot more photos. And perhaps actually buy something.
Nestled in snug next to its neighbor like a little brother looking for love, 37 Queensberry Street in Boston's Fenway neighborhood is about as odd a work of architecture as you'll see in the city. Like two tiny houses stacked on top of each other, this four-bedroom, single-family home is known as The Pantry. Constructed in 1920, according to a listing on Redfin, the building was renovated in 2005. The house sold for $835,000 in 2009; Redfin estimates a selling price today of just under $1.5 million, were it to hit the market.
I think it's obvious that during the renovation the top two floors were added and the ground floor was changed significantly. The second story, I imagine, is largely unchanged on the outside. But what is this place? The building next door, 35 Queensberry, rose in 1899, according to Redfin. So 21 years later somebody tacked this skinny building onto the side, like a pantry off the kitchen. Was this place a storage facility of some sort for the main building? A garage? An actual pantry for one of the apartments? The two works of architecture are so different and don't match at all: different color bricks, different roof details, different (original) height.
I haven't been able to find anything out about this place, but next time I'm in the neighborhood I'll be tempted to ask for a can of cling peaches out of The Pantry.
